I unwrapped the compact mirror I’d been working on back at New Millennium and stepped up to the locked doors. Devourers shifted restlessly in the wall, like sharks sensing blood. I held the mirror perpendicular to the glass and hoped I’d strengthened the soul jars enough to hold the devourers back.

When I’d experimented with mirrors for the Gateway Project before, I’d tried to use the reflection to help me with targeting. This time, the glass was invisible, leaving nothing but a ring of text and magic. I peered through that small circle to the pushbar on the inside of the door. Treating the mirror as if it were a book, I pushed my fingers through the glass.

They emerged inside the prison. My fingertips touched cold metal. Very slowly, I eased my hand and the mirror forward. My fingers pushed the bar inward, unlatching the door and easing it open. Deb caught the edge.

That had worked better than I’d thought. Without the reflections, I’d been able to concentrate solely on the magic and my destination. I’d have to try adding an invisibility spell to the mix back at my lab.

Deb slipped inside, followed by Lena. I stepped through last and carefully pulled the door shut behind us.

Two men jogged toward the door. They wore dark blue uniforms and badges like the one I’d seen in the prison yard. I pulled my companions to one side of the hallway. With this being a prison, simply opening the door had probably tripped a signal or alarm.

Deb started toward the guards. I caught her arm and whispered, “Not yet.”

Ever since I’d gotten my first close-up look at Babs Palmer’s magic-dampening work, I’d been thinking about ways to bypass it. Not for any nefarious purpose; I just wanted to see if I could do it.

The flaw in such defenses was that they had to be magical themselves. I’d read the book Babs had used to create her magic-hating oysters. I knew the text bound up in the seeds of those pearls.

I handed Smudge to Lena and crept closer. The effect of the amulets spread outward in a vaguely human-shaped cloud, a shield with indistinct boundaries. I waited for the men to move past me, then stepped behind them until I touched that outer edge. Their amulets ate away at my invisibility like acid. As my hands became visible, I reached for the text of their protection.

It felt like grabbing an electromagnet after filling my veins with iron filings. Not only did the pearls physically repel my efforts, but every one of those imaginary filings shifted in response, tiny needles stabbing my hand from the inside.

My arms were visible to the elbow now. The pain in my fingertips faded. The resulting numbness was even more worrying.